'I Quit' Video Brings Marina Shifrin Job Offer, Boss Reply, Lectures

Before this week, Marina Shifrin was just a regular 25-year-old trying to make a career for herself in journalism, but now the woman behind the "I Quit" viral video is an Internet celebrity.

Not everyone was impressed by her public resignation though.

Shifrin worked as a news video producer for Next Media Animation, a Taiwanese animator, but grew increasingly frustrated with her ever-changing schedule, "weird" hours, and her boss' business philosophy that emphasized clicks over content.

Shifrin, who graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism before moving to work in Taiwan, went into the office early and set up cameras. She then performed what she calls an "interpretive dance" set to the Kanye West song "Gone."

The clip spawned parodies within hours and Shifrin is now stuck in the revolving door of TV and website interviews — "Today" show, Huffington Post, Gawker, etc.

Her NMA bosses have also spoken out and voiced their side of the story.

"That wasn't working out for her," Michael Logan, who was Shifrin's direct supervisor at NMA, told the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog. "We do have projects that have a longer lead time — parodies, our TV work and so on. And we gave her every opportunity to develop ideas for those. But we lead with the news, and that means we need to work fast. You're tied to a cycle. And obviously, views are ultimately what pay the bills for us. But there wasn't any kind of increased mandate while she was here, and we've never had any quotas for views.

"We gave her assignments and opportunities to be creative. She never took them."

Though most people who watched Shifrin's video or heard her story had a positive reaction, some think her actions are just another example of the entitlement of Millennials — sometimes called Generation Y or those born between the late '80s and early 2000s.

"…In many ways, [it was] a dream job: A free ticket to a foreign country to work on funny stuff in an awesome company with cool people? What’s not to like? Or more specifically, what’s not-likeable enough about that situation that you’d choose to burn your bridges so publicly?" WSJ's Tao Jones wrote.

"I thought about that a lot before I posted this video," Shifrin said. "I started working when I was 13 as a babysitter and I’ve always had like two or three jobs … but our generation is seen as lazy. What’s the line between us being brats and expecting a perfect job or expecting praise at work or expecting to be just respected? We just get such a bad rap."